Alan Simpson, co-chair of the Deficit Reduction Commission, once again has trouble with his mouth. The report he and co-chair Erskine Bowles issued in December recommended, in the words of South Florida NPR station WXEL, "Social Security benefit cuts via a higher retirement age, lower annual cost-of-living adjustments and a change in the way benefits are calculated." And, WXEL quoted Simpson in a just-released interview, as declaring, "We're not talking about privatization. These jerks that keep dragging that up are lying. We never suggested that."
But just a few weeks ago, he and co-chair Erskine Bowles let loose their deficit reduction report. Its "Recommendation 5.10" urged: "A serious bi-partisan conversation...regarding incentives to generate personal retirement savings that supplement Social Security...Americans need a fiscally responsible personal retirement savings system..."
Coming on the heels of their several proposed Social Security benefit reductions, those accounts would not simply "supplement" Social Security but would supplant significant parts of it. That in essence was George W. Bush's failed plan to divert a portion of Social Security revenue into private accounts. When "privatization" proved an unpopular term, President Bush tried, unsuccessfully, to disown it.
Former Senator Simpson is also trying to shuck it off. But, shucks, if it sounds so much like Bush's privatization gambit and would have essentially the same effects -- shrinking Social Security while expanding higher-cost, lower-reliability private plans, it makes sense to call that "privatization." Translated to Simpson-talk: "If it looks like a bum steer on Social Security, sounds like a bum steer, struts and staggers like a bum steer, we should just call it a bum steer."
"Lowering the the Cost of Living Adjustment" does not shrink the social security program, it just moves benefits from current to future retirees by defering the date at which the SS trust fund empties.
And their proposal "RECOMMENDATION 5.6: GRADUALLY INCREASE THE TAXABLE MAXIMUM TO COVER 90 PERCENT OF WAGES BY 2050."
provides new funds and grows the SS program.
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Renginiu Organizavimas
I have been posting comments on this blog for more than a year. Some of you may have believed me, but I suspect that a lot of you thought that I was a “nutty professor†who didn’t know what he was talking about. For more than nine years of my decade-long campaign to expose the looting of Social Security, I had almost no support from the media, but that is changing. In a recent post, I provided links to two of Allan Sloan’s columns on the subject. I hope you read them. Here are links to four other prominent journalists who are saying the same thing. PLEASE READ THEM!
The Social Security trust fund myth by E. Thomas McClanahan
Kansas City Star, December 26, 2010
http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/social-security-trust-fund-myth/
Social Security Turns 75, Starts Cadging From the Kids
Eric Schurenberg, Editor in Chief, CBSMoneyWatch.com
Posted: August 24, 2010 10:02 PM
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/financial-independence/social-security-turns-75-starts-cadging-from-the-kids/1006/
Your payroll taxes go into bottomless hole
BY TERRY SAVAGE Nov 28, 2010 0Chicago Sun-Times http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/2291351-452/fica-tax-security-social-breakouttext.html
The Social Security Trust Fund Myth
By Steve Vernon, CBS Money Watch | Feb 1, 2011
http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/money-life/the-social-security-trust-fund-myth/2944/
Most of the discussion about the financial status of Social Security is framed around the perception that Social Security has a surplus of $2.6 trillion and that is enough money to pay full benefits until 2037. Neither of these statements is true. They should be true, and they would be true, if the $2.6 trillion in surplus revenue, generated by the 1983 payroll tax hike, had been saved and invested in real marketable U.S. Treasury bonds as was the intent of the 1983 legislation. BUT THAT DID NOT HAPPEN!
When the first surplus revenue flowed into the Treasury in 1985, instead of using the money to purchase real Treasury bonds, it was diverted to the general fund and spent on other things. That practice continued, unchanged, until 2010 when years of surpluses came to an end and the nation entered into a period of permanent deficits. Social Security does not have a surplus of $2.6 trillion. It has no surplus because all of the money was looted and spent on other programs by the government. The government owes Social Security $2.6 trillion, but it has made no provisions to repay the money, and it does not currently have the means with which to repay the money. That is why politicians are trying to cut benefits, so the money will not have to be repaid. WE DARE NOT ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO GET BY WITH THIS TERRIBLE FRAUD!
simpson is lying about SS and the louder he gets the more he's trying to distract the American people.
Throughout my long campaign to expose the looting of Social Security, the mainstream media has avoided the subject like the plague. The government does not want the story reported, so the media does not report it. That changed, at least a little, when Allan Sloan, Senior Editor at Large for Fortune Magazine, quoted me, and referred to one of my books, in his August 10, 2010 Washington Post column. Once Sloan broke the taboo, several other journalists followed, and Sloan wrote an even harder-hitting article on December 21 that included these words:
“The trust fund is nothing more than a trap and a fantasy for those who think it's a solid foundation for Social Security.â€
I think most journalists are still too “job scared†to cover the story. The Dan Rather Syndrome has had a powerful impact on journalists, especially given the fact that job security in the field of journalism may be at an all time low today. A major letters-to-the-editor campaign would be one way of helping journalists to publicize this issue without putting themselve at risk. They can publish the opinions of letter writers without being held responsible for the content. Here are links to Allan Sloan’s two articles on Social Security:
Allan Sloan, August 10, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080905559.html
Allan Sloan, December 21, 2010
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/21/dont-trust-social-securitys-fund/
We could sure use a President Lincoln today, coudn't we? I don't know whether or not Lincoln was as honest as historians protray him, but I do know that for the past 25 years, under five presidents, two Democrats and three Republicans, the American people have been hoodwinked and deliberately misled by their government to a greater degree than ever behore in American history. This is not exaggeration or hyperbole. If the truth ever comes out about the great Social Security scam, historians will be able to document what I say above.
The 1983 payroll tax hike, imposed on the baby boomers, allegedly so they would prepay the cost of their own Social Security benefits, has been effectively confiscated by the government and used to offset the lost revenue resulting from the unaffordable income tax cuts under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Income and wealth have been transferred from the lower and middle-income classes to the upper class, with most of it ending up in the pockets of the richest 2 or 3 percent. The $2.6 trillion in surplus S.S. revenue was all spent by the government on other programs, and the government has made no provisions for repaying it. Those who want to cut S.S. benefits are trying to find a way to avoid repaying the Social Security money that has been "borrowed" or "stolen."
If the government doesn't have the money to pay it back from the general funds (and leave it alone) they might want to think about getting it back from those who received it-----the rich.
Allen W. Smith, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, Emeritus
Eastern Illinois University
Website: www.thebiglie.net
Email: ironwoodas@aol.com
Phone: 1-800-840-6812
".. I’ve proposed that we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. Understand what this means. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and bring this spending -- domestic discretionary spending -- down to the lowest share of our economy since Eisenhower was president. That was a long time ago."
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Defense and domestic discretionary spending compose nearly all of discretionary spending. I assume that Defense is not considered part of 'domestic discretionary spending'. According to some, projected future growth in entitlement program outlays may put severe pressure on discretionary spending unless policy changes are enacted or federal revenues are increased. Correct me if I am wrong, but Obama may have betrayed the average American once again.
How does he plan on paying back Social Security?
Simpson is not dealing with reality!
Remove the salary cap from FICA, extend the tax to cash bonuses, cash incentives, etc. Include the hedge funders' 2% & 20% as normal earned income, make capital gains normal earned income!
For at least 15 years, we have been asked the simple but very pointed questions about whether we think Social Security will be there when we retire...as a way to condition us to it being taken away from us. But little is talked about that it does not contribute to the deficit because the government never has contributed any money to the Social Security program. Instead, we, the employees, along with our employers, contribute to the program and it has never failed to pay the beneficiaries of the Retirement Program.
And, when the recession took trillions in value from our homes and th estock market, Social Security didn't lose a penny. So, as they have tried in the past, and with the market agian climbing, they want to make us believe that the market is a safer place to put our retirement funds...until the next market crash takes away even more of our retirement dollars, maybe just when you are planning to retire. Do you want to trust your future to the risky Stock Market? I won't unless I have some secure funds in place first. Social Security is that.
The man is 80 years old for heavens sake. He can't even relate to our youth, he has a typical Republican attitude toward women that is archaic and not 21st century thinking. Simpson thinks he's a big shot when he's just an old man that has nothing to offer except what will most certainly hurt our people.
No one needs to cut these programs. They need to cut the military and leave lifelines ALONE. TAKE THE TAX PAYERS CREDIT CARD AWAY FROM REPUBLICANS since they can't seem to stop using it like they own it as in the 140 billion they added in December to the debt! Remove any authority they have to spend money and let the Dems pay the debt down like they always have.